


Suits and Suitors

by MyMisguidedFairytale



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Challenge Response, Crushes, Developing Relationship, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, Good Writing, Harlequin, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, Inspired by Novel, Love/Hate, Mutual Pining, One Shot, PariCheadle, Regency, Regency Romance, Romance, Sexual Tension, This Hits Every Trope In The Book And It's Wonderful, Trope Subversion/Inversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 20:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19047604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyMisguidedFairytale/pseuds/MyMisguidedFairytale
Summary: Regency AU: Agreeing to a fake betrothal should suit both Cheadle Yorkshire and Pariston Hill fittingly - clearing Cheadle’s debts and keeping Pariston’s husband-hunters at bay. Even if Cheadle despises the very air that Pariston breathes! If Pariston wants a wife who’s agreeable he has his work cut out. Yet when his demanding mouth caresses Cheadle’s for the first time ever she’s lost for words. Maybe Pariston’s found the one way to tame the only woman who’s ever stood up to him and make her say, ‘I do…’





	Suits and Suitors

**Author's Note:**

> _Suits and Suitors_ was originally written and published on June 05, 2015 on [tumblr](https://cheadle-yorkshire.tumblr.com/post/120736547177/fanfiction-hunter-x-hunter-suits-and-suitors).
> 
> Everything below is preserved as it was originally posted:
> 
> **Title** : Suits and Suitors  
>  **Pairing** : Pariston x Cheadle  
>  **Word Count** : 5105  
>  **A/N** : Written for the Unconventional Courtship Harlequin AU fic challenge, using summary #126, _The Outrageous Belle Marchmain_ , as my inspiration. This is a Regency AU setting (~1820). I hope you enjoy!  
>  **The original prompt, with names changed, is as follows** : A MARRIAGE MOST INCONVENIENT! Agreeing to a fake betrothal should suit both Cheadle Yorkshire and Pariston Hill fittingly - clearing Cheadle’s debts and keeping Pariston’s husband-hunters at bay. Even if Cheadle despises the very air that Pariston breathes! If Pariston wants a wife who’s agreeable he has his work cut out. Yet when his demanding mouth caresses Cheadle’s for the first time ever she’s lost for words. Maybe Pariston’s found the one way to tame the only woman who’s ever stood up to him and make her say, ‘I do…’

__

__

##  _S_ uits and _S_ uitors

She intends to spend the day talking to the local doctors and offering her skills to them—she has heard there are more cases than they can handle in such a large town, and certainly they would have patients that are difficult, if in disposition instead of injury, that they would prefer to foist on another. The conversations go much the way they always have—with condescension and disregard. No woman could have the skills she possesses, and they will not even test her claims. They think medicine is a hobby to her, and scorn her for studying when for someone with her standing, her time and family’s money should have been spent on her efforts in society. The name of Yorkshire is an old one and still carries some weight, but the money is not what it was. She had hoped she would be doing more by now, healing the sick and injured like she’s been trained. It is all she has ever wanted.

But no one else seems to want it for her. So it is that Cheadle finds herself walking into town and finding a nice, quiet place to relax with a book. For a moment, she is even successful at it.

Across the square, she can see the group gathered by the windows of a fabric store, laughing so loudly that Cheadle has no trouble hearing them from her spot on a bench beneath the shade of an oak tree. There are girls—five of them, Cheadle notes—and several men, all dressed elaborately in the latest fashions of cut and color. Standing a head taller than the rest is one she recognizes—Pariston Hill, one of the only unnattached and certainly the wealthiest man in the area. She makes a face, the reason for their attention made clear. And she thought it was bad when the militia were in town.

One of them reaches out and lightly touches Pariston’s shoulder. Cheadle draws her eyes back down to her reading, and does her best to block out the return of their laughter and the sound of the shop bell jangling behind them. 

A few moments pass. She turns the page only to see a deep shadow cast over her book. Looking up, she’s met with Pariston’s smiling face through the glare from her glasses.

“Miss Cheadle!” He sounds so sincere, and for a moment Cheadle tries to catalogue his response and compare it to the way he’d acted with his companions earlier. Every time she meets him, some part of her feels like she is meeting a different person.

“Mr. Hill.” The acknowledgement is quick and that is all she offers, watching the way his eyes light on the open pages in her hands.

“Don’t get up on my account!” he continues. “What are you reading?”

“A medical journal,” Cheadle says. “The newest issue of _The Lancet_.”

“Ah.” Pariston feigned interest with the same cheerful disposition he gave to nearly everything. “You studied medicine, didn’t you? At Girton College?”

“Yes.” Her distrust flares. While it was fairly common knowledge in the town that Cheadle had gone through such an education, her exact place of study was not. She certainly had never told him such a thing.

“Do you require medical attention, Mr. Hill?” It’s too easy to turn a smile up at him, to make it just a shade too mocking. “Or perhaps we could discuss this newest issue. I know you consider yourself an expert on many subjects.”

He laughs more from his throat than his stomach, Cheadle notes. It’s not pleasant—strange that he should cultivate his entire appearance around pleasing others, when his efforts seem to have the exact opposite effect on her.

“Oh, of course!” he says. “I was going to ask if I could borrow it. It does interest me greatly, as you know. And if something is noteworthy enough to interest _you_ , I try to keep myself informed of it.”

“Perhaps you should tell me what you already know about Sir Cooper’s lectures. I might have to fetch you a more rudimentary introduction.”

He launches into a speech about how he was lucky enough to have met the magazine’s founder at a party once, and Cheadle finds herself studying the layers of crisp dark blue fabric covering his shoulders. His fashion is almost exessive to the point of wastefulness. She doubts she’s ever seen him wear the same thing twice. It’s a good thing, she has to remind herself, since any increased familiarity with his wardrobe would imply an unacceptable level of familiarity with the man himself.

“You were saying, Miss Cheadle?”

Her eyes dart back to meet his, her face reddening. “I was lost in thought.” It sounds too much like an apology to her ears, and she quickly moves forward. “Did you ask me a question?”

He laughs again, but this time the sound is warmer. “I did! I was hoping you might attend a ball I’m throwing at Sudbury Hall later this month. It is always nice to have all one’s friends in one place, don’t you think?”

Cheadle is once again at a loss for words, quelling both her surprise at the invitation and the instinct to immediately refuse. She doesn’t like Pariston, and what she knows of his friends she doesn’t like either.

“I will try to attend,” she says after a moment, deciding it to be a suitably diplomatic response. He reaches for the journal, and she shoves it into his hands. “You can take this, so we have something to talk about the next time we meet.”

He flips the pages—her irritation returns when she remembers she hadn’t finished reading it yet—and he stops on a woodcut illustration. Making a noise of interest, he lifts the page to look at it closer, and yanks his hand away sharply when he catches one finger on the edge of the paper.

“Ah, I seem to have…” His distress is comical next to such a trivial wound, but when he holds his hand out towards Cheadle she takes it out of a desire to put her unused knowledge into action, even if it’s only a papercut. Even if it’s Pariston.

It’s deeper than it should be, and Cheadle frowns. “May I?”

He offers her the handkerchief from his front jacket pocket with no visible remorse. It’s made of nicer fabric than the dress she wears, and Cheadle binds his index finger with precision and a small amount of vicious satisfaction.

“You’ll survive,” she says, releasing him.

“I’m glad.” When he folds his hands around the journal, she thinks it’s no coincidence that he keeps his bound one on the outside, clearly visible.

A moment later, Pariston stiffens as a woman’s laughter cuts through their preoccupation. Cheadle recognizes her as one of the women from before, with brown hair coiled in tight ringlets, appearing by Pariston’s side and looping her arm around one of his. He allows the contact, smiling down at her. It’s different, though—it’s a tighter smile, one that doesn’t reach his eyes and only barely reaches his lips. It’s the same kind of smile as the woman’s laugh had been—made of more ridicule than candor, and it’s strangely gratifying to see it directed at someone else instead of only at herself.

“So this is where you’ve been!” she says, and laughs again, turning towards Cheadle. “I didn’t know you were aquainted.”

“Just barely,” Cheadle says, “but even that is too well for my liking.”

“I see.” Then, as if judging Cheadle to be no threat, turns a coy smile up at Pariston. “Shall we return to the others? Mr. Nana was bringing the carriage around.”

“Are you in such a hurry? The country is not going anywhere. It will wait for us, so I must try to have that same patience, yes?” Pariston winks at Cheadle over the woman’s head.

“I would invite Miss Yorkshire to accompany us, but we have no room for one more. Sadly.”

“Perhaps another time.” Pariston’s eyes have never left hers, even when Cheadle tries to look everywhere but at his face. Across the square, a gentleman from Pariston’s group strides towards them, the wind rustling the long edges of his black coat.

“Oh no,” Cheadle says, “I insist. Do not go to such trouble for me. I doubt I would appreciate it as much as you’d intend.”

“All the more reason, hmm?” Pariston’s smile is glittering, and when the other man—Mr. Nana, Cheadle remembers—reaches them, he tips his black and white hat in her direction.

“We are ready to depart, Pariston.” His tone is light, but there is a touch of grouchiness beneath the surface. “The others are getting anxious. I’m a poor substitute for you, it would seem.”

When a flash of irritation crosses Pariston’s face, Cheadle is surprised. She had thought he delighted in that kind of attention.

“Let’s not keep them waiting, then,” Pariston says. He bows his head, and Cheadle returns the gesture. The other woman tightens her grip on Pariston’s arm, but when he turns, he makes sure to tuck the medical journal a little tighter against his other side.

Once again alone, Cheadle sits back down on her bench, breathing softly. It’s peaceful enough, without any further disruptions or noise to disturb her, yet she cannot calm her racing mind. And with her medical journal gone, she has no outlet at hand to distract her. Instead, every problem she’s tried to bury down comes racing back to the surface. Her lack of patients willing to hire her to treat their injuries. The debts accrued from her studies. Her social standing and no surfeit of acquaintances to help her secure her future. The fact that even in a bustling town, surrounded by people, she still feels a little lonely.

–

“To the left! The _left!_ ” Piyon all but shrieks, half caught up in laughter. Piyon had wanted to drive the carriage herself, but settles for driving through her commentary from her spot seated between her cousin Kanzai, who drives with a little less recklessness than Piyon would prefer, and Cheadle.

“You know,” Kanzai says, after the left wheel returns to the road, the carriage having swerved to avoid a fallen tree branch someone had dragged only partly off the road. He’s sullen at not riding in the other carriage with Cluck—and Geru and Ginta, but the others are inconsequential in the face of his obvious, if shuttered, affection. “We’re very close to Sudbury Hall.”

Cheadle stiffens, and Piyon twists in her seat, looking through the sparse trees as if the giant house is lurking somewhere between them. “Are we now?”

The last is said to Cheadle with no shortage of amusement; Piyon bumps Cheadle’s shoulder with hers, and her expression is both knowing and jealous. “I can’t believe you were invited to the ball! I wish I could go!”

“You can take my place, then.” Cheadle feels her face growing hot beneath her glasses, and adjusts them hastily, taking the opportunity to turn to the side. She knows the house will not be so close to the road, but still she does not wish to look at it or acknowledge it at all. It makes things a little more permanent. “I didn’t think you liked Mr. Hill, either.”

“You don’t have to _like_ him, you just have to _tolerate_ him!”

Beside her, Kanzai makes a muffled snort.

Piyon continues, sounding almost delirious. “Ten thousand pounds a year!”

“Oh, not you, too!”

“Perhaps he’s merely misunderstood,” Piyon offers, with only the tiniest bit of conviction.

“And perhaps he’s every bit as callous and self-serving as I’ve always suspected.”

“People like him can afford to be,” she says, “although he does a good job hiding it, if that is his true character. But that still doesn’t explain why you treat him with such open disdain, even after all his overtures of friendship.”

Cheadle scowls, her hands clenched into fists in her lap. “Because he knows it and he never lets anyone else forget it! He knows he can have anything and anyone he wants. Because I refuse to be added to his…collection!”

“I don’t envy that,” Piyon says, “but I can’t be the only one that envies you for his attention.”

“I told you, you can have it—”

Her words run out as the carriage crosses a bend in the road, a break in the tree cover revealing an expanse of glossy green hills and a stately house perched on the highest visible point, far enough away to look like a miniature model or a landscape painting, perfectly sculpted and so beautiful that for a moment it takes her breath away. She’s never seen it before, but she knows what it is, and who it belongs to.

A moment later and it is gone as the road dips down and curves away, and the house is lost to the trees once more.

Kanzai pauses, his attention momentarily taken from the road. He adjusts the reins in his gloved hands, his voice colored with something like envy. “It’s a nice house.”

“It’s ostentatious and excessive. It’s certainly not for _our_ benefit that we have such a view of it.”

Piyon scoffs, twisting back around in her seat—she’d turned around and leaned over the back railing to get a last glimpse of the manor. “He didn’t _build_ it.”

“True,” she concedes, her initial instinct to keep the words under her breath falling away as she thinks, once more, about him. “But he _did_ have those trees chopped down. You could see the trunks, set off from the road. He wants to be seen. To be admired.”

“Well,” Piyon says, as if the house was completely forgotten, as if it was that easy. “Let’s just focus on enjoying _ourselves_ , hmm? And this wonderful day!”

–

The lake is wide and curves in an arc inbetween the hills so that one standing on its shores could not see anything on the other side. It is bluer in color than the sky, made even more pronounced on days with sparse clouds like this one, and as Cheadle turns her face to the sky she has to raise one gloved hand to block the sun from her eyes.

“Look, a fish!” It’s Cluck, accompanied by a loud laugh. “Do you suppose we could catch any?”

“With what equipment?” Down on the shore, the toes of his boots buried in the damp sand, Kanzai skips rocks across the placid water. “Even if we could, the drive is too long to keep them from spoiling. I’m sure they eat fish from these lakes often at Sudbury Hall, though.”

Cheadle wrinkles her nose at the subtle reminder. Beside her, Piyon and Geru discuss fashion—Piyon is certain flowers will be the season’s fashionable accessory, and hopes they can find some wildflowers to bring back for inspiration—and Ginta hovers behind them, carrying their now-empty picnic basket.

“—Cheadle? What do you think?” Geru asks, startling her out of her study of the lake. She had thought she’d seen a small boat, close to the opposite shore.

“I think I’ll take a walk,” she says, her voice distant, having barely heard enough to truly answer Geru’s question.

Ginta turns as if to follow her. “Do you want someone to accompany you?”

“Oh no.” She addresses the group as a whole, even though half have their backs turned. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll stay close.”

Satisfied, he nods, and Cheadle slips away, up a hill of trampled grass to the woods that wrap around the large lake. It’s fed from a series of small streams; it had rained two days prior, so the ones she can hear race with a pleasant gurgling noise, but the ground is dry enough that Cheadle doesn’t have to mind her skirts as she walks over the large, flat rocks overlooking the riverbank.

On and off again she can hear noise from the group—laughter, or the sound of rocks being thrown into the water—but when she takes a path deeper into the woods the sounds become far less frequent. The ground is steep and dotted with enough trees and bushes to look purposefully constructed, but just overgrown enough that it must have been quite a while since anyone last took care of it. She considers turning back at the next stream, when the ground shifts beneath her and she stumbles down the slope, catching her balance in a manner ungraceful enough that she is glad no one else is around to see it.

A pause, and then she hears a voice. “Hello? Is someone there?”

She stumbles further out of surprise, taking a few steps towards the direction of the voice and finding a clearing made of rocks and overgrown bushes. Seated on one of the rocks, his posture bent forward as if to seek out the source of the noise, is Pariston Hill.

Cheadle feels her balance shift again, as if she is once more stumbling down that rocky slope, although her feet remain firmly planted on the ground.

“What are you doing here?” she asks. Immediately, she realizes the foolishness of such a question when there are a dozen more that would be more pertinent, and the rudeness in being so direct and informal when they both are alone. She should excuse herself and leave, she knows this, but something keeps her rooted to her spot as he lifts his head and fixes his eyes upon hers. His momentary surprise transforms into the slightest grin before he tilts his head and his bangs obscure his eyes.

“I live just next door,” he says, in a lilting way that makes Cheadle feel very much like she’s being made fun of. “As you know. I often come here, especially when I am entertaining guests.”

“And are you?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” He sounds pleased, whether at that fact or what follows, Cheadle cannot say. “I escaped them to hide here. I hope you will not expose my ruse.”

In the silence that follows, he pats the empty space beside him, staring at her with expectation.

“Well,” Cheadle says, crossing the clearing and taking the offered seat, “I wonder how capable a host you’ll be at your ball, if this is how you treat your invited guests.”

“I never said they were _invited_. The grounds of my estate are open to visitors, and I have associates who often stop by in an ill-conceived attempt to curry favor with me.”

She smooths her gloved hands over her skirt, brushing off any specks of dirt. They are far too close; her shoulder brushes his every time she fidgets.

“Is that all I have to do, then? Drop by unnanounced?”

“Oh, my dear Cheadle,” he says, and she bristles at the casual use of her name, “the reason you have my favor is that you have done absolutely nothing in pursuit of it.”

“Then is there nothing I can do to change your mind? I know how capricious your attention is.” His attention, at the moment, seems to be fully affixed on her. She looks away, preferring to study the leaves of a tree opposite the clearing and pretending she is speaking to them instead.

“On the contrary,” he says, “you’re the only woman I know who doesn’t bore me.”

A strange feeling pulls at Cheadle’s stomach. It’s a strange piece of flattery, and the longer she thinks on it, the more she realizes that the same is also true of him for her.

“Then,” she says, swallowing, “the only thing left is to ask you what you want with me.”

“There is one thing.” His back is straight, his hands resting loosely on his knees—and she can see the red edge of a half-healed papercut on his right index finger. “And in this matter, I think we can both get what we want.”

“I’ve never been one for suspense. Just tell me.”

“You have debts, from your studies. I can erase them.” He pauses, and she waits for him to finish and make his point. “And I am _inundated_ by those seeking my name and fortune, to the point where I can no longer ignore the pressure.”

“What are you saying?”

“Why, Cheadle,” and when he shifts at her side, Cheadle can vaguely feel him clasp one of her hands in his. “I am suggesting we marry.”

She snaps her head back, eyes widening, surprise and disbelief etched into every pore of her face, to find nothing but genuine intent behind his.

“ _What_ -? Why…we…” She continues to gape at him, struggling to condense her thoughts back into something she could understand, let alone convey. “We’re not in love!”

His eyes fall, but he retains his soft grip on her left hand. “This is not about love. Consider it a business arrangement, if you will. I would ask nothing more from you than this. A proposal alone might even be enough—to show my family I can be serious about my future, about someone else—and to dissuade the hordes of women who keep coming up with increasingly creative ways to try and ensnare me—”

Cheadle’s nose wrinkles as Pariston continues, waxing about his own troubles and assuring Cheadle that, no matter if she broke off the engagement down the road, she would still have all her debts erased.

She’s wondered what he could possibly want that he doesn’t already have, but it should have occurred to her that it could have been quite the opposite—there are things he has that he doesn’t want, things that Cheadle is in the perfect position to take away. And Piyon’s voice, crowing _ten-thousand a year_ , echoes in her mind, over and over. It seems such an easy solution to her problems.

Pariston pauses, and lifts her gloved hand between them, bowing his head just slightly over it. The sight is enough to once again send her thoughts skittering in all directions.

“You still haven’t given me an answer,” he says. “Do you accept?”

She breathes, once, slowly, while she recollects herself. She has never considered what her prospects might be, nor thought that anyone else in her acquaintance could consider her as such. She’s always thought that one day she would just find herself already in love with some respectable, ordinary individual—or if not that, in a respectable, ordinary match. The point still stands that she could do much, much worse, and that the feeling of his hands around hers does not feel quite as horrible as she thought it would. That instead of just using her for his own purposes, he’s inviting her to use him too.

She stares at their entwined hands a moment longer, before slowly raising her eyes back to meet his. “But how would we tell everyone?”

“Oh, my dear Cheadle,” he says, “that is what the upcoming party is for.”

–

She’s wearing her nicest dress, in layers of light green with ribbons at the waist and hem, and Pariston is in a suit jacket so well-tailored that he appears to have emerged from a master painting. The effect is so striking that she almost cannot bring herself to approach him when she spots him in the open hall, standing so perfectly next to a column and watching the rows of dancers complete their turns. It is growing dark, but the late evening light is a brighter, sharper color against his form, highlighting his face to its best effect and throwing his shadow into vast, harsh relief against the plaster wall.

He sees her and crosses to her side in an instant, grasping her arm beneath the elbow and drawing her back to the space he had just left, in the center of the room, with a clear view of both the dancing couples and the rooms beyond, stuffed with food and revelers. Many of them are looking their way, and Cheadle purses her lips, more than aware that Pariston has also chosen this place with that in mind.

“My dear Cheadle.” He takes her hand and lifts it. She wears the ring he had presented her with, an excessively massive diamond surrounded by a cluster of smaller stones on a golden band. When he once again bows his head towards her, she is not sure if it is her hand or the ring that he shows his deference.

“Mr. Hill.”

He gives her a crooked smile. “I thought we’d been over this. I’d prefer it if you called me Pariston.”

“I’m aware.” She tries to match his expression, but only comes half-way in capturing the kind of deceptive cheer he manages so well. “But I don’t think you’ve earned that yet.”

“Well,” he says, leaning closer. “When we are married, you may call me Mr. Hill as often as you like.”

Her face flushes and she looks away, scowling at the laughter that bubbles its way out of his throat. He tugs her hand towards the open floor, where the current dance has just ended.

“Shall we?” he asks.

“I don’t think you’ve earned that yet, either.” She looks up at him and removes her hand from his; he lets her go, and something like disappointment flashes across his face. “You tease me too much.”

“I would do so every day, if I had my wish.” His voice remains just as deep, just as distressingly intimate to her ears as it has been since he leaned close to her, as if to compensate for the fact that he cannot touch her in any other way.

Cheadle looks at him and suddenly feels so incredibly overwhelmed. “Excuse me,” she says, pushing past him. He moves with a fluid grace, and their shoulders do not even touch—she does not know if she wishes they had—and makes her way around the crowd, looking for a calm, quiet place where she can be alone, if only for a moment.

There are a few stares from those less practiced at hiding their thoughts, a few conversations suddenly hushed as she passes, and the open disdain from a small group of women, among them the one she remembered seeing on Pariston’s arm in the town square. She finds a corridor—not private enough, as it opens onto the dining room, where the tables are heaped with food and more than a few people spill out of the doorway, filling the narrow space with their carefree laughter. A half-open door shows her Pariston’s office, and she gratefully slides inside, crossing the room and pressing her back to the wall of windows before taking a series of deep breaths.

It occurs to her after a moment that she stands in Pariston’s private office, and after casting a quick glance at the door—still just barely ajar, with only the barest amount of light and noise making its way inside—she approaches the large wooden desk set at an angle in one corner. The surface is tidy, but hastily so—there are pieces of paper sticking out of the edges of the books stacked in one corner, and Cheadle can see numbers written on one in neat lines, like it had been torn out of a ledger.

Something else catches her eye, and she reaches for the top book. Before she can touch it, Pariston’s hand alights on her own. She glances back at the door; it is closed.

“Found something that interests you?” he asks, lightly.

“I should be asking you the same question.” When Cheadle reaches for the stack of books again, he doesn’t stop her. She moves the top one out of the way, revealing the cover for _The Lancet_. “Did you like it?”

He chuckles, and when Cheadle reaches to lift it, grasps her hand again. “Very much.”

She looks up at him, studies his eyes. He’s trying to distract her. “You’re lying.” It pleases her that she can tell.

He laughs again, stepping closer. “You’re right,” he says. “It bored me.”

The look she gives him is disparaging. “Everything bores you.”

“Not everything.”

Cheadle pauses, any words she might have said stuck in her throat by the open, unguarded hunger in his eyes. It brings a flush to her cheeks, but she cannot look away. Nor can she move when his hands move to cup the sides of her face. He waits, as if giving her a chance to say something or pull away, but when she doesn’t, he moves closer, bending forward to seal his lips over hers.

He is surprisingly passive, but when her hands lift to grasp the front of his shirt and tug him closer, he responds by pulling back before kissing her again, one hand moving into her hair, the other wrapping itself around her waist. He’s more insistent this time, and when she tilts her head to deepen the angle, the edges of her glasses start to slip down her nose. He breaks the kiss to press his mouth against the exposed skin at the side of her neck, and she can feel the edges of his lips curving up in a smile.

She gasps and takes a step back. “Pariston!”

His arm still stays locked around her waist, and he rises back to his full height, appraising her once again with his dark, heavy eyes. “I must have done something right, to have earned the _privilege_ of hearing my name fall from your lips.”

She scowls, but cannot muster up any further anger; it all has fled her body, replaced with a vague confusion and the strangest sense of loss, prickling over the skin at her neck.

“There are many among my staff who could use access to a doctor. Them, and their children. If you are willing, you could see them at the end of the week.” He watches her for a moment, watches the emotions flicker across her face, and continues. “We do not have to go back. Not yet.”

Cheadle reaches up to adjust her glasses, and his image sharpens; his eyes follow the ring on her hand, and she remembers bandaging up his hand some time ago. She wonders if it will scar. If she will have put as permanent and matching a mark on him. She smiles. “You shouldn’t be talking.”

He nods his head, his approval shining like a beacon, and sets himself to the task of obeying her.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Unconventional Courtship is a yearly fic challenge hosted on dreamwidth that takes its prompts from harlequin romance novel summaries; the list of them is [here](https://unconventionalcourtship.dreamwidth.org/401.html) and reading them is quite entertaining.
> 
> 2\. While I attempted to retain the feel and the minor details of the Regency setting, I have taken quite a few liberties with this story. _The Lancet_ is England’s oldest medical journal and was founded in 1823. Girton College was founded in 1869. Sudbury Hall is a real place and was my model for Pariston’s house. Otherwise, the setting is meant to be ambiguous.
> 
> 3\. This is also the 100th story I've posted to Ao3! *Throws confetti* 
> 
> 4\. Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your comments. Who knows, one day there might be more of this?


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